SWC partnered with Wake County Parks to hold our fourth annual Moth Night at Crowder County Park in Apex Saturday evening. Bonnie Eamick, a certified environmental educator and SWC member and Adam Prince, an outdoor educator with the parks, teamed up with some friends from the local insect (and arachnid) population to deliver a fun night for everyone!
Using iNaturalist/Seek, and with guidance from the leaders, adults were able to identify many of the species (out of thousands) that decided to visit our lighted sheets that evening. This included some very interesting specimens, such as the rosy maple moth (check out the blond hairdo and see if it reminds you of anyone), the eastern eyed click beetle (who performed some clicks for us), the rhinoceros beetle (no horn, since it was a female), and the yellow striped army worm.
The kids also had fun with capture-and-release and showed great skill at this, proudly displaying their specimen in jars and cups before releasing them. They also went “spidy sniffing,” shining a light forward at nose-level into nooks and crannies to find spider eyes gleaming back at them. One wolf spider was huge and definitely took the prize!
Many thanks to Bonnie and Adam for a great evening in the wild!
